Hi all!
Again, I want to ask what works with the STM32. I know, ST's site is pretty clear on that, but I would just like to know how much each of these cost as my evaluation of IAR is finished and it is clear the tool is not cheap at all.

So: What is the price on a single commercial license, without any restrictions on ARM cores.

Can the community, please, help me fill/update/correct my table? Also, I would like to add any other alternative I have not noted yet. I will update my post with the info you send!

Please, help me choose a decent software tool without loosing days filling quote requests and talking to very verbose representative, when I only need an answer that fit loosely in a u16, that is: the price.

Anglia idealist is really excellent.
The IDE lacks a few standard features, but this is more than compensated for by it being exteremly easy to set up (compared to other gcc/openocd toolchains), simple to learn, and very easy to configure for your build/processor (compared to some commercial packages). It's also free (although registration is required) which is a lot cheaper than some other gcc front-ends.

On 05-02-2009 at 19:53, Anonymous wrote:
I've heard about Eclipse + OpenOCD. Do anybody used these? What should I think of the various free alternatives?

I use exactly that for the project you can see in my signature and I have no problems:
GCC+Eclipse+ZylinPlugin+OpenOCD

It is a powerful toolchain but a bit hard to setup initially. See www.yagarto.de.
Of course you are a bit on your own if you need help but this was not a problem in my case, there are a lot of helpful people on forums and newsgroups. Overall I see the FOSS toolchain as an advantage because you can control every single bit of what you use.

CodeSourcery offers about the same thing with support so it could be a good choice, the freedom of FOSS tools and support.

The IDE is very easy and intuitive to use. The Editor is pretty good and configurable. The Debbuger is fast and reliable.
Like I´ve read on Sparfun forum when I was choosing an IDE... it´s everything I need.

Also, the firmware library examples are ready to use with a few clicks.
The only drawback is that Application Notes from ST and most projects on the internet aren´t ready to the Crossworks(Usually they are ready to IAR, Keil and Ride). You have to set them up by yourself.

Hi mate,
Have you looked at RapidiTTy MCU (from TTE systems)?
It comes with a lot of benefits such as: no restriction on code size, support both ARM7 and Cortex-M3 targets, a royalty-free RTOS, suite of high-quality library code which covers common tasks, also they give 12 months support and upgrade. All for about $2000. Looks very interesting!!
http://www.tte-systems.com/products/mcu

I use Rowley Crossworks for ARM and also the RTOS (CTL) that comes with it. Crossworks is pretty good and the few times I've used it the Rowley support was very good.
Agree with brunoalltest that the only drawback is that examples provided by ST do not have project setup for Rowley but this is minor as it's easy to create projects.

Can anybody explain us how the 32K =DEBUG= limit is implemented on Raisonance RIDE with Rlink-nonpro?

Say you have a STM32F103E with 512K rom, 64K Ram.
If I have a program with 31K FLASH usage, it will be able to debug, and as soon that I have 33K, it's compile-download only?
Is the 32K the number of variables opened simultaneously in the debuger?

You can use gdb-insight. The only problem is hardware jtag interface. I found "gnu" debuging real PITA. HW tools with support are very expensive, other free and low-cost JTAG tools still need a lot of work to be stable and usefull.

This is the reality: you can spend $$$ for compiler/debuger and get JTAG for free or free compiler/debuger and spend $$$ for JTAG

I've been using the Crossworks IDE (full commercial version) for about
a year. I would recommend it.

I did try to install Eclipse, but found it too awkward to install and use.
I think I got it installed OK, and tried to compile one of my projects,
but because it just tried to compile every file under the source folder,
it failed (as I do keep other bits of code files with my source, which
should be be a problem, if I get to choose which files are a part of my
project).

So, I would also like to point out that 'ease of use' is quite a valuable
asset, and Crossworks certainly has this.

John.

ps. I would be happy with a none-IDE development. I can edit files OK,
run a command line gcc/make OK, even write linker scripts if needed,
and all those tools I can get for free. The only part I like a window
GUI for is the debugger. If anyone knows of a stand-alone free JTAG
debugger, I'd love to try it (like ddd for Linux).

jschatz, the RLink that is inside the primer cannot be used for production. In fact it cannot be used with anything else than the STM32 that is inside the primer. For production you should use the stand-alone RLink. You can use the Standard or Pro, as the 32K limitation of the Standard version is only on debugging, not on programming, see below. (the standard RLink is almost the same price as the primer, and it can also work with ST7, STM8, etc.)

relaxe, lil-vince is correct about the implementation of the limitation of the Standard RLink. You can debug applications that use up to 32K of Flash and 32K of RAM. So in fact it's 64K ;-) ...except that initialized data uses space in both Flash and RAM, and there is the stack too. You can compile larger applications (of course we do not limit GCC) and download them to the Flash, (programming is never limited) but not debug them. (for that you need the Pro version)

Finally, relaxe, please note that the Raisonance prices (and some others too, I guess) are 'stable' in Euro, not in Dollars. So if you want your table of prices to remain correct in the coming few months as the currencies evolve, I think you should mention that.

The RLink is definitely proprietary to Raisonance, and the uLink is definitely proprietary to Keil but, now that you come to mention it, I think the "IAR" JLink is actually just a "badged" product from a 3rd party - and they provide support for the other, non-IAR tools...

My cost is a reasonable $69 for the dongle. I also have a PCB cost, but that is independent of the tool selection.

IDEaliST is not code limited. It uses the Insight user interface for the OpenOCD debugger. The only significant disadvantages to IDEaliST is that it does not have the V3 Firmware Library yet, and support is minimal if you are not an Anglia customer.

definitely proprietary to Keil but, now that you come to mention it, I think the "IAR" JLink is actually just a "badged" product from a 3rd party - and they provide support for the other, non-IAR tools...

Yes, it's badged. JLink is a Segger product. They make special versions for IAR and Atmel (SAM-ICE).

I work for the same company which produces the Idealist toolchain. www.anglia.com/software.asp

We are developing a microcontroller plugin for codeblocks which supports OpenOCD. It allows you to select a micro, and automatically generates the OpenOCD script, and launch/control OpenOCD automatically. It is currently being tested, and need to add a few more features like option bytes etc...

My personal opinion is that the simulation features present in Keil and IAR can be very valuable.

Also OpenOCD at the moment is yet to support SWD.

I think it's sensible to say in our experience, unless you take the time understand GCC and OpenOCD enough, you can get in a bit of a mess.

I got some pricing from Raisonance to upgrade the r-link to unlimited debugging. It 's priced at 700€ which is a little high in my opinion because the Ride 7 IDE must get a more professional touch.

Therefore I was wondering if I could use the Amontec JTAGkey2 ( price 115€ ) for STM32 devices using eclipse and openocd ? I didn't see the cortex in the supported device list.( only ARM7/9/STR ) But I guess this is only a config file as long the JTAG pins are well connected.

I'm using a STM Primer 1.
I use opensourcery lite (free) with openocd and eclipse.
Both in Linux and Windows.

It took me a much more time to set it up then I would have liked.
But, I think most of the time was spent because my lack of knowledge on things like Makefile and linker script.
I started with openosourcery about a year ago. Bach then, it was quite more difficult to find examples and things alike. At least it seemed.

I've used Ride a little while before changing to Eclipse and Eclipse seems more `configurable` then Ride.
I don't use many plugins for Eclipse, but, I quite sure they could be useful.